


A collection of difficult things

by tinybluehands



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Gerlonso - Freeform, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 13:09:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3069308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinybluehands/pseuds/tinybluehands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xabi thinks about weight-lifting and emails Stevie about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A collection of difficult things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ballade_at_thirtyfive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballade_at_thirtyfive/gifts).



**From** “Xabi Alonso” <xabi.alonso14@gmail.com>

 **To** “Stevie  <3” <stevengerrard@gmail.com>

+add Cc   +add Bcc   +add Reply-To

 **Subject** a collection of difficult things

 

_Stevie,_

_I was thinking about lifting things yesterday. How it’s difficult to lift things, and unpleasant, and we only do it when we have a good reason to do it. I will lift 30 bottles of champagne only if I need to carry them from the supermarket into my house. I will not lift them, and put them down, and lift them again for the sake of it. I used to lift Jon up when he was little simply because I liked the feeling of holding my own son in my arms, feeling his little heart beat against my chest, feeling his small hands awkwardly trying to grab my beard and pull at it. He’s older now, and heavier, and suddenly the difficulty of lifting him up seems to surpass the pleasure of that feeling. So I don’t do it anymore. I was thinking about how we lift weights as footballers, but because it makes us quicker and stronger on the field, not for the sake of it. I was thinking about how the only people who have made lifting weights into an art – the weight-lifters – are the people who do it for the sake of it, the people who do it because they simply love lifting weights._

_I thought about running yesterday, too. How it’s difficult to run, and unpleasant, and I know you know what it’s like when you’re short of breath and it feels like an invisible fist is screwing itself into that space right between your lungs and just at that moment you need to lunge out and steal the ball from your opponent. I will run from my car into training if I’m late. I will then run in training, as we all do, because it helps us out on the field. I will run to catch Jon when he’s sticking out his tongue behind Pep, or Anne, when she thinks pretending to be a bat princess on the balcony railing is a good idea. But I will not run the length of my garden, then run to the house, then run back again just for the sake of it. I was thinking about how we run as footballers, but we run because we need to pass the ball and score goals, not for the sake of it. And about how the only people who have made running into an art – professional athletes – are the people who do it for the sake of it, the people who do it because they simply love running._

_I also thought about writing yesterday. How it’s difficult to learn how to write, especially in another language, to learn the spelling and the grammar and the commas and the order of words in a sentence. How it’s difficult to write in general, to find the right words, to take the knot of emotions or ideas in your head and stick your fingers right in the middle of it and pull and stretch and untangle and spin around until they turn into words. I will write emails when I need to communicate something to someone, I will write my mother ‘Feliz cumpleaños’ cards when I can’t make it home that week and I know that if I don’, my dad will call in the evening and the disappointed heavy “Xabier” will fall on my shoulders through the phone like it used to when I snuck out with a football before finishing my homework. I need to tell you that story sometime. But yes, I’ll leave Nagore a note on the night table saying “I had to go to training early – see you in the evening.” I’ll never write down a handful of words because they look good on paper or on my laptop screen. It’s difficult and I get no pleasure from it. I was thinking about how the only people who have made writing into an art – the writers – are the people who do it for the sake of it, the people who do it simply because they love writing._

_I thought about football yesterday, too. How it’s difficult to lose, to feel defeated, to lie on the grass with the stadium roar suddenly five hundred times louder against your eardrums, with every ache in your body suddenly waking up to life, with every ache and doubt you’d ever had about your life quickly rushing in as well. How it feels to lose a Champions League final, to feel like you’re dangling on the edge of a precipice, and on the other side there’s a trophy and glory and reward but your fingers slip and you just tumble down, with the small secret fear that it’s going to hurt even more when your body hits the ground. It’s like that twitch in your sleep. You wake up afraid, sweaty and trembling, you wake up afraid of a strange only-half-imaginary death. It’s difficult, it’s unpleasant. I’ve lost many games in my life (we’ve lost a final together) but that fear is still there. It’s difficult and you never get used to it and you never learn to love dangling on that edge. So I was thinking if the only people who have made football into an art aren’t the people who have learnt to love that anxiety. To hold on to ground crumbling under their fingers with one hand, while holding up the weight of another ten men with the other hand. I’m still scared. I play football because I love football, but I fear that pain so I run from safe place to safe place, weighing the likelihood of falling down at each team. I was wondering, Stevie, if you’re not one of the few people who have truly made football into an art. I was wondering how many nights you wake up after a loss with the sheet clinging to your skin, reaching out for something that isn’t there, your mind empty but for the feeling of impregnable depth. You stayed at Liverpool though. You stayed for the thrill and the love, for the sake of it, because_ you _love it._

_I thought about us today. How it’s difficult. How 90% of the time it’s unpleasant. How I sit in front of the TV and watch you over countries and seas and you don’t even know I can see you, not really. How I sometimes call just to hear your voice (I always forget it, Stevie, I always do) and even the smallest time zone difference washes over me with the sense that I’m calling at the wrong moment, with salty waters of inadequacy. How sometimes you simply pop into my head, just like that, I’ll put on a shirt and think ‘Stevie will never see me in this shirt’, I’ll feel my leg for bruises and think ‘how long has it been since Stevie’s hands were last on my body’, I’ll listen to a beautiful song about love and shake my head and think ‘they don’t know what they’re talking about, oh, they have no idea’ (which is another way of thinking ‘Stevie’). How when we meet it’s so often rushed and stressful and tiring because no one can see us, no one can know we’re together. How us is so difficult because it’s not meant to be us. How every time I put my arms around you I know at the back of my mind that it might be the last time for months, that we are happier than ever in this place where we should have never been, that what I hold in my arms is not just your body but the multifoliate explosion of the last firework in a winter’s night display. Beautiful, fleeting, burning into my flesh. It’s difficult. But I was thinking I’m willing to lift this weight for the sake of that otherworldly lightness when I’m around you. I was thinking I’m willing to run from hotel to hotel, from airport to airport, from thousands of eyes fixed on us just to find that warm hollow place of the silence of us together. I was thinking I’m willing to write you cheesy emails without having much to say, and willing to bear the thought of you rolling your eyes at all of this, or wrinkling your nose like you always do. I was thinking I’m willing to stand on the edge of the precipice, willing to run away from most things but not from you, willing to embrace the thrill and the love. I was thinking about the reason why we do all this. I was thinking about how we might’ve made us into an art – yes, us – because we do it simply for the sake of it._

_Happy New Year, Stevie._

01/01/2015 3:58 am. Click. _Your email has been sent._

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I've managed to write after a particularly difficult writer's block and was written as a belated nowhere-near-as-good-as-it-should-be birthday present to ballade_at_thirtyfive (dear god how do you tag people on this website?!). Also, Happy New Year everyone :)


End file.
